When she finally gets a look at their new arrival she let's out a long breath. "Woah, you weren't kidding there. Umm.. Honey, you might want to... uh... holster those twin weapons, it'd be a distraction for some of our teammates. I can... umm... make some leaves and we can wrap them Eve style." She offers.

"And, no Buzz, a plant can reproduce sexually by two different parts of itself - male and female parts."

Buzz listened to Semillia's explanation of plant reproduction. "No, offense, Sem, but that's a bit freaky." She paused and whispered into Semillia's ear. "Just... just because otherwise this will bug me all day, that doesn't happen to you when you turn all plant, right?"

Whatever the answer, she stands back up straight."So, most of us can move pretty quickly for tracing this root, but I dunno how we'll follow it. Unless Semillia can trace the path out for us or Techie can whip up some sort of Root-Finder-Tron-3000-i-Thingamajig?""

Corey turns his attention to Technomancer. "...Probe? Seriously?" Then turning to the rest of the group, trying as bet he can not to look lower than collar bone level, "Ignoring the middle school humor, Techno is right. If he has a robot he can send in; which by the way T, awesome. Anyway, if he can send the robot, it is a lot safer than my viewing portal. Two way blow back and what not. If the cave is filled with spores or anything, I'll get a face full before I can get a good look. We should all be near by just in case, but I am voting for the recon droid." Then turning to Myth directly. "So, Miss.... um, yeah. When did you first notice the disturbance in 'your' forest?"

"Yeah yeah, I can do that. Hmmm, what would be cooler. Technomancer starts bringing pieces out of his pocket and quickly assembling them. Soon he has a small flying monkey flapping in his hands. "he has got sonar, IR, and a 3d mapping program. I've also thrown in a little somatic analyser programme. he will be able to see, hear, and smell trouble before it gets to her. he is pretty quick and nimble as well. Fly my pretty, fly.

You all gather around Technomancer's laptop as his latest contraption scurries off up the hill towards the opening you've spotted. At first the slightly jerky, fluttery, movement of the monkey is a bit disconcerting but you soon get used to it. The video stream shows a view from the monkey's 'eyes' as it flies about 15 feet off the ground, avoiding most of the underbrush.

The stem root that runs off up the hill starts off quite large, but slowly tapers off as it gets farther up the hill, until, by the time it reaches the opening in the rick face, it's no thicker than your little finger. Just outside the opening is a shriveled pile of leaves and stem that Semilla recognizes as another plant thing. This one, however, seems to have grown no bigger than about four feet high, before dying off.

Slowing down, the monkey flies into the opening, it's optics adjusting to the dimmer light inside. Telemetry data at the side of the screen measures the opening as 4 and a half feet high, and three feet wide - large enough for a person to get in without too much of a squeeze.

Inside, the cave - it is a cave - is large enough for several people to comfortably stand up. The floor slopes upwards towards the back wall, which is oddly flat and a bit shiny. Some lights like glow-worms glimmer together about chest height on the back wall.

Travis' flying monkey hovers uncertainly for a moment, it's systems analyzing and adjusting to the cave. The video feed on his laptop blinks and then becomes much clearer, giving a detailed view of the cave.

Near the entrance, the rock looks very much like the rock face the opening is in, rough natural rock. After that it has a very different look. Most of the floor and walls are shiny, smooth, dark rock, that looks like it has melted and run. The back wall is what really grabs your attention, though. It's nearly flat, patches of the dark lava rock at the edges changing into what looks like a dark metal in the middle. Overlaying all that is what could be a shiny, blue-tinted, transparent plastic sheet. In the very of the metal wall center is a round-cornered rectangle.

A door.

Just to the right of the door, at chest height, is a panel about 10 inches square, studded with blue, yellow, green and orange lights. Each light is about 2 inches square. The plastic sheet doesn't appear to cover the panel.

The monkey slowly moves forward, inspecting the metal wall. It's dark grey-brown, smooth and blank except for the door and the panel. The door has no handle or hinges, and the gap between the door and the wall is very small.

The panel is slightly inset into the wall. On close inspection it has a cover that slides out from a slot along one side. Someone has pried the cover open, pushing it back into it's slot, and them jammed it in there, breaking a couple of screwdriver blades off to do so.

ShortcutHP: 1Condition: Unphased"Great, a space ship. Anyone really surprised?" Corey looks around to the rest of the team. "Well, we can't just leave without poking around in there. It looks like someone already got in and started messing around. Obviously a serious craftsman, judging by the way they rigged the panel. Definitely a Craftsman, or maybe Black and Decker, it's hard to tell." Not waiting to see if his lame hardware joke lands, Corey focuses for a second, conjuring up a Rip Disk. "I'll meet y'all up there," and with that he hops through the portal, making his way to the mouth of the cave.

OOC- Figuring a double move will get Shortcut 2000 linear feet. If he needs to, he'll pause for a moment mid air to catch his breath as he continues onwards. Time to go provoke the plot...er, aliens.

Buzz noted Semillia's lack of comment and nodded slightly. Huh... well, that shouldn't change how I think of her, right? It's weird, but hey, that's her business. She straightened and listened to Technomancer's explanation of what his monkey was seeing. As Shortcut winked out out sight, she turned to Semillia."I can sick by you or I can run ahead and see if he needs help. Preference?"

A quick hop later, Corey finds himself at the entrance to the cave. Looking in, he can see that it's not that big, or deep. About big enough for a few people to gather inside. The entrance is fairly small, a little bit of a squeeze to get through, and not letting in that much light, which makes the interior rather dark. Technomancer's monkey hovers inside. Seeing Shortcut's arrival, Travis helpfully switches on a small LED light on the monkey, giving enough light for Corey to see inside OK.

Stepping inside the cave, Shortcut is struck by the rear wall - a wall of dark metal, poking through the melted rock, and overlaid with a glimmering blue sheen that looks like plastic at first glance. The monkey moves aside, tracking his movements. Examining the control panel, he notices something on the floor below it. A couple of broken screwdrivers, their black and yellow handles showing that they are Stanleys. He stoops to pick one up, and doing so sees something scratches lightly into the rock there. Some words:

"Almonds, vanilla, then burnt ash and cut grass. Presto!"

The other Players

You start to make your way up the hill to the cave, carefully picking your way between the two remaining plant things. Technomancer hovers instead of walking, looking at his laptop and giving a running commentary of what Corey is up to.

"OK, he's in the cave now. I'm giving him some light - the monkey has a Fenix OE34D LED, smart to think of that....

...he's picking something up - looks like a Stanley screwdriver - now he's looking at something on the floor - can't really see it - maybe some writing?

"So, some interesting stuff here," Shortcut says over his comm. "Looks like someone has been in the cave and it looks like they gained access to the door. They left a note, kind of weird, but I think I have a hunch as to what it might mean. It says 'Almonds, vanilla, then burnt ash and cut grass. Presto'. Doesn't make much sense, but I'm guessing it has to do with an access sequence. Sem, plants and insects would be sensitive to chemicals in the air, right? So scents are just traces of chemicals. What if the buttons are scented and you have to tap them in the order of smells that our mystery man left?" Shortcut wanders out into the daylight, standing on a rip disk just outside the cave entrance. "I'm going to investigate, sniff around so to speak. But I'll take precautions. I'll leave my comm open and put on a gas mask in case there are scent based counter measures." Shortcut pauses for a second. "Yeah, that is pretty much top on the list of things I didn't think I would be saying today..." Then he opens up his safe place to grab his gas mask.

OOC- And here is where the stupid thing happens. So the gas mask is stored in my dimensional pocket. Along with one of the defense tower plants that Techno shrunk down. Since he has reconfigured his gadget numerous times by now, I am guessing that it has gone back to full size, possibly surpassing my weight limit. So BC, have fun with that...

...only to have his hand pushed aside by a flood of mashed, sloppy, plant matter. The flood keeps going, and going, with occasionally items that he's stored previously coming out, all covered in plant goo. Eventually the flow ends, leaving Shortcut standing ankle-deep in green gloop and the contents of his safe place.

"Uh...y'know on the other hand, I think I'll... hurk... just wait up here for...oh god.... you guys to come... so nasty...up. That's never firing again.."

OOC- Wow. I have this picture of Corey just standing dumbfounded trying not to hurl, covered from the waist down in a combination of pureed celery and cranberry sauce. Great first impression for the new team mate... Great description BC.

Last edited by sirzanek on Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Buzz listened to the communication with her brow furrowed beneath her mask, biting her lip."On one hand, i sounds like Shortcut isn't in dire trouble. On the other hand, it sounds like something horribly embarrassing and photo-worthy happened too..." She blurred along the distance of about 10 feet as she physically embodied her divided desires to witness Shortcut's situation and to leave him his pride, to be at his side to help him recover or to let him figure it out on his own... Such a pickle...